Can You Love Me With the Lights On?
by IHeartAaronHotchner
Summary: Synopsis: Spencer conteplates his relationship with Adrienne. A big secret is revealed. Chapter 3 is new! Criminal minds tangent series. Set after Waking Up in Vegas.
1. Chapter 1

**Can You Love Me With the Lights On?**

I don't own Criminal Minds. That would be freaking awesome if I did, but they are property of CBS and Jeff Davis. But, SSA Adrienne Eliso, I do own. Please don't steal her.

_"I used to think--and given the way we ended up, maybe I still do--that all relationships need the kind of violent shove that a crush brings, just to get you started and to push you over the humps. And then, when the energy from that shove has gone and you come to something approaching a halt, you have to look around and see what you've got. It could be something completely different, it could be something roughly the same, but gentler and calmer, or it could be nothing at all."  
— Nick Hornby (High Fidelity: A Novel)_

**Chapter 1**

The whiteboard was filled with numbers and letters and symbols. Everyone watched as the two of them kept writing more and more.

"What are they doing now?" Garcia asked as she walked in.

"Quantum Physics or something. I dunno. All I know is 'X' is supposed to equal some number and that's what those two or trying to get," Morgan said.

"So some sort of weird, freaky, genius foreplay?" she asked.

Morgan chuckled. "Yeah, I guess."

"X equals 2.6. You buy!"

"You haven't even finished writing."

"I don't have to, Spencer! I already figured it out! Now admit defeat and hold up the bargain!"

"Fine. What do you want?"

"Food." She said as she sat down at her desk.

"I know that. What kind of food?"

"The kind you eat."

"Adrienne, come on."

"Ask a stupid question, get a stupid answer."

"I..huh..Oh…"

"Quit whining and go order pizza or something."

"Wait, for everybody?"

"There we go with the stupid questions again."

"That wasn't part of the deal, Ade!"

"So… You could at least be nice and feed everyone. That's what nice people, like me, do."

"You're not nice."

"Reid!" Morgan hollered. "I'm hungry. Go order the pizza already." He looks over at Adrienne. "You know I'm starting to think I should have just let to two of walk into that wedding chapel in Vegas."

"Not funny, Morgan."


	2. Chapter 2

**Chapter 2**

The whole team sat around the bullpen between the four desks of Reid, Morgan, Prentiss, and Eliso, eating lunch.

"It's been a while since we had a party," said Garcia.

Morgan stuck his Ipod in the speaker dock, and turned it on. "Now it's a party." He got up and started dancing. He looked over at Adrienne. "Girly girl, show us what you're working with." She took his hand and started moving to the beat with him. "Go, Shawty, it's your birthday." She moved up the aisle and grabbed Garcia and pulled her into the mix. JJ laughed and joined in too.

Reid sat in his chair and smiled and shook his head. Adrienne always made him smile. The rest of the team called it his personal Reid effect. Even after everything that happened in the last few years. It was her smile that lit up his world. It wasn't his world that he was worried about. It was hers. I didn't know if he fit in her world, and even if he did, he didn't know where. But he wanted to, at least he thought he wanted to.

He watched her move over by Hotch and grab his arm trying to get him to dance. Hotch grinned and protested.

_She makes Hotch smile. _He thought. Maybe Adrienne had her own effect on people. Six months ago, they would never being doing anything like this. She changed the dynamic of the team. She made them more like a family.

Derek went back to his desk and sat down. He turned the music off. Laughing, he looked over at Reid, "Hey Pretty Boy, didn't see you up there with us."

"Huh?" he was still thinking about everything.

"You ok, man"

"Yeah." He looked across the aisle at Adrienne sitting on her desk, slice of pizza in hand, talking to JJ and Hotch.

"Have you talked to her about it yet?" Morgan asked.

"About what?"

"About you two, your relationship, what it is, where it's at., when you're gonna take that next step."

"If we take the next step."

"You saying you don't want to?"

"Morgan, I'm saying I don't know if I can."

"What do you mean?"

"I mean, I love her, but..."

"But what?"

"I… I heard she had an affair with Hotch back when we were still recruits, back when we were… together."

"You think she did?"

"I dunno."

"Let me give you some advice, Pretty Boy." Reid looked at him. "Talk to her about it.


	3. Chapter 3

**Chapter 3**

"Coming!" she yelled at the ringing doorbell. It was the second time it rang in the whole minute that she had been out of the shower. She tied a knot in the belt on her robe and looked at the clock. _10:35 pm. Who the hell?_ She opened the safe on the nightstand and removed her gun. She continued out of the room and headed for the front door. She released the safety on the Glock 23 in her right hand and grabbed the knob of the front door with her left. She turned the knob and began to open it. She looked around the door.

"Hi, Ade."

She flung the door open. "Spencer, it's 10:30 at night. What are you doing here?" she grabbed him by the arm and pulled him inside, shutting the door behind her. He turned and looked at her.

"I wanted to talk to you about something."

"It couldn't wait until tomorrow morning?" she asked, engaging the safety on the Glock.

Reid swallowed hard. 'It's kind of… um… personal. Ade, can you please put the gun down?"

"Why? You afraid I'm gonna shoot you?"

"No…Just put the gun down."

She walked past him into the living room, and set the gun down on the coffee table. He followed behind her.

"There. Sit. What is it that you wanna talk about?" she asked sitting down on the couch next to him.

"Well, um, us."

"Us?"

"Yeah. This, uh, relationship…"

"Uh huh."

"Before we go and try to progress and have a normal relationship, I have a few, um, things to ask you about."

"A normal relationship? There is such a thing?"

"Sure. I mean JJ and Will have a normal relationship."

"We're not JJ and Will, Spencer. You know how normal relationships end up fifty percent of the time? Like Rossi and his last three relationships. Is that what you want?"

"Yes! I want a normal relationship, Ade. Is it so much to ask for? A normal relationship with no secrets. That's why half of all normal relationships end up like they do. Because people in normal relationships are honest with each other!" his voice rising with every sentence.

"What are you saying, Spencer?!" she asked in shock.

"Did you have an affair with Hotch?"

Her eyes widened. "Who told you that?" she sternly asked.

"Answer the question, Adrienne!" he demanded. "Have you now or ever had an affair with Aaron Hotchner?"

"Now? No."

"But you did."

"Yes."

"When?" He waited for a reply but none came. "When Adrienne?"

"A week after we started at the academy."

"Were you still while we were dating?"

"Yes."

"Is that why you wouldn't marry me?"

"No."

"Then why?"

She closed her eyes, took a deep breath, then looked at him. "Because I didn't want to hurt you. Because I actually did love you. Because if we got married and you found our, it would be a hundred times more hurtful than what it is now."

"You said 'did'."

"Huh?"

"You said you 'did' love me. Not 'do'."

"Spencer…"

"Do you love me, Adrienne?"

"Yes, but not the way you love me. We're not twenty-two years old anymore. We need to let go of that, because we aren't those two people anymore. I'd like to able to have a relationship with you again, but that past and what you know now is always going to be in the back of our minds. I don't want those to get in the way of anything that could possibly be good." She leaned over and kissed him. "I do love you, Spencer Reid, but I don't think we're ready to take this relationship where you want to."

He moved the wet strand of hair out of her face and tucked it behind her ear. "I love you, too, but I don't think we're ready to take this relationship anywhere."


End file.
